Free, and apparently epicly terrible

Anyone noticed the shrink-wrapped box sets littering dorm hallways, mysteriously titled “Wild Animus”? We did, and our fancy was struck, so we decided to do a little digging. What are these bizarre boxes? How did they get here? And what do they want with us?

We took to the information superhighway in search of answers. Our first stop was an old blog post by a fellow truth-searcher, one Robert Nagle of the blog idiotprogrammer. It turns out Wild Animus’s author, Rich Shapero, made his fortune doing something with technology and decided to use his fortune to publish and give out free copies of his book.  Over time, he’s added CDs and other media to create a sort of immersive literary experience (an experience someone recently decided Princeton students needed to have).

But here’s the thing: apparently, the book sucks. Like, really sucks. Here’s a collection of reviews from around the web:

“Deficating [sic] onto a page does not count as writing a novel.” – anonymous, idiotprogrammer

“This is easily one of the worst books I have ever read.” – Patrick Burnett, amazon.com

“Worst book ever.” – cade, goodreads.com

And, to be fair, a slightly more positive review:

“I haven’t read the book yet, but the spoken word CD series is worth a listen to anyone interested in psychedelics or survival journeying or vision questing.” – Janto, idiotprogrammer

So there you have it. Apparently this thing has gone global, with people receiving and ignoring the book in Europe, North America, and possibly Asia. But since Princeton students have so much time for pleasure reading (and a vibrant psychedelic community), I’m sure “Wild Animus” is going to catch on here in Central Jersey. Or, you know, not.

(image source: http://www.richshapero.com/images/store_boxset.png)